No Soup For Me, So Let's Talk Shopping

I am so sad, tonight I was going to make a mushroom leek soup. Time escaped from me and here I am at 11:00 pm. No soup and I just got home. I have no excuse, I just got busy and when I finally got home I realized I am out of veggie broth! No soup for me tonight. To be honest, with all this blogging and only me to eat the food, I am kind of overloaded right now with left overs, so maybe it is OK that I take a night off from cooking.

So instead, I figured i would write about where I find my food. Not restaurants (though i love writing about any good vegan restaurant), but more where do I get all my vegan goodies. The things that many non-vegans say.. what is that?! when I pull out my lunch at work.

Though things seem normal to me now, here are a few examples of food that raise eyebrows when I talk about them or bring them outside of the house:

Photo credit: www.easyvegan.info

• Lentils
• Beans
• Vital wheat gluten
• Quinoa
• Wheat berries
• Kamut
• Hummus (chickpeas)
• Tahini
• Spaghetti squash
• Pickled turnip
• umeboshi plums
• mochi
• miso
• collards, chard, dandelion greens, rocket greens etc

The list could probably go on for a while. For me, I grew up in a very meat and potato style home. Every night the meal was based around a meat and then usually potatoes or rice and broccoli and carrots or something like that. Transitioning into a plant-based diet, I had to completely re-think what I was going to eat. Once I started reading and trying recipes and connecting with other vegans online, I realized how many foods are out there that I never knew existed and how good they are!

I don't have a big budget and living alone can make it trick to get a bang for your buck, so I have had to do some research in finding the best spots for me to get food. So here are a few stores that I tend to go to a lot to get my wacky vegan ingredients (which, are not that wacky!) 

1. Oliver Square Safeway - Mostly because they are pretty close for me, I tend to go here a lot for my main grocery shopping. The nice thing about Oliver Square is that they have a pretty decent 'specialty' area. They have quite a few Amy's soups and burritos and vegan pizza. They also recently started selling quinoa in bulk which is awesome. They always have decent tofu and mock meats (veggie ground, tofurkey sausage etc). They have an olive orchard, which I love and a nut bar where you can get natural peanut butter! Their produce is not bad and usually have what I need for most dishes. 

Oh and while you are there, go check out Breadland, a specialty baker that is across the street (117st and 104 ave). they often have vegan cookies!

2. Planet Organic - I love to shop at planet. All organic and lots of local foods. They also are a great source for tofutti, vegan cheese, mochi, miso and coconut bliss ice cream. They also have a seaweed section and I also go here to get nori, wakame and other sea veggies. There produce is always great, but they are a bit pricey. I shop here when I can, but usually it is just to pick up a few hard to find items. The staff there is also great and it is so nice to have good customer service when you're out. If you go to the Whyte Ave. location, they have a great deli and bulk section, but I tend to stay downtown and theirs is not bad either!

3. El Safadi Brothers Market - Tucked away in the north end, this market rocks. I go once in a while, but if they were closer to me I would probably go a lot more often. They have fantastic prices on produce, oils (I just bought a litre of olive oil for $4.99!). Also a great source for beans, lentils, tahini, pita bread, olives, dates and pretty much anything you find in middle eastern food. They also have a pretty interesting source of candy and pop if you are looking for a treat. If you are into hookah, they sell them there and are one of a few spots in the city where you can buy the non-tobacco shisha. If you haven't been, go.

4. H&W Produce - If you are looking for cheap produce, go to H&W. They have locations all over the city. I usually go to the west end. Their vegetables are sold at a fraction of the price of the mainstream grocery stores. Sometimes, they are not the freshest, so usually best to have a plan for using things pretty quickly. I go there for herbs, guinea pig veggies 9basically the ingredients of garden salad), eggplant, berries. They also have some hard to find items like daikon, burdock, jamica, lotus root, and much more. If you can't find the veggies you want at Safeway, head to H&W. Careful, they are not open late. I often go and they already closed...

5. Lucky 97 - I think they are under a different name now (I will check into it), but this is what we always called them back when I was a kid. This is the grocery store in china town on 97th st and 107 ave. If you are looking for anything Asian that you can't find in your regular grocery store, go here. In fact, if you just want to get exposed to some new foods, go here. Excellent spot for cheap miso, mirin, tofu, herbs and spices and rice.. If you have the space to store large bags of rice, you must go here. They also have an excellent stock of fancy rice cookers. If I had any more storage space, I would be all over that one!

6. Sobeys in Lessard - Normally I would put Sobeys with all the main stream stores, but I was interested in this one because for a while, they were running 24hrs. For a night owl like me, this is important piece of information. They have changed now and I think close at midnight, but that is still better than most. Not only are they open late, but they have some high-end deli style vegan cheese and that makes them worth posting. They also have a decent kosher section which is not something I know much about, but I noticed it when I was in there. Figure it is worth mentioning.

7. Costco - I go to costco for one reason. Cheap, large bags of quinoa. Nuff said. Anything else you find there is just icing on the cake.

When I go grocery shopping, I don't go to seven different stores, but I look at my grocery list pretty carefully and see if once of these stores is worth the trip. I usually end up going to two or three different places in a week. It is worth it to save the money and be able to eat well. Plus sometimes the ingredients I get aren't always available in one store. If it is not in the first place I go, I don't abandon what I was going to make. I revisit the list and see where else I could go. Then while there, find what else can be knocked off the list. A little more brain work, yes... But worth it. If you haven't been to some of these spots give them a try.

What stores do you shop in for you hard-to-find items?

Chickpea "Turkey"

Today I was invited over to my sister's place for thanksgiving with her family. While she is vegan friendly and even flirts with vegan herself, the rest of the family is very meat and potatoes. Knowing this, I knew that I better prepare accordingly.

No, it does not look like turkey. It is not turkey, but it is gooood.

One of the things I hear a lot is that it must be so difficult for me to eat with a bunch of non vegan people. I also have been seeing the 'I pity you' face from people when they realize that I can't (won't) eat turkey for thanksgiving. I don't know about other vegans, but I really don't struggle with it. I like to cook and usually the things that I make are pretty good and non-vegan approved. It feels good to know that nothing died for me to be thankful or to celebrate. I don't find it difficult to be in a room with people eating meat. My life style choices are for me and even if I wish that everyone else would join me, I know that can't control that. So I take charge of myself and I am thankful that I can do that. I am not going to hide at home on these meat-fests. I am going to be out there making sure everyone around me knows I have good food too. Maybe even better than some traditional dishes...!!

I censored out the meaty bits. Vegan and Meat Eaters come together for a Thanksgiving feast

I decided to bring my upside-down pumpkin cake (Click here for the recipe) and also to revise Thanksgiving Tofurkey that I made last year. Everyone expects tofu when I show up with a vegan entree for dinner and I thought that I might as well trip them up. Instead of making Tofurkey, I made thanksgiving chickpeas!

I was really hopeful that I could make this yesterday so I could have entered into iron chef.. but that's OK  There was too much prep for me to have made it on time.

The idea behind this is simple. I made stuffing, then I made chickpea patties and molded into a hollow dome. Stuff the stuffing in the dome, baste and cook. I got this idea from The Kind Diet where Alicia Silverstone uses tofu to make a very similar dish. I think you could make this with any meat substitute, but you need a bunch of it, so tofu, beans, lentil would likely be the easiest to work with.

Thanksgiving Chickpeas
Makes about 4-6 servings
Takes 90 minutes if all the items are ready in advance


Stuffing:

• 1 Tbsp sesame oil
• 1/2 yellow onion, diced
• 1/2 cup of onion
• 1/2 an apple, peeled, cored and diced
• 1/4 frozen peas
• 1/2 tsp dry sage
• 1/2 tsp thyme
• 1 tsp fresh parsley, chopped
• 3 pieces of whole wheat bread, diced (or you can use bread crumbs)
• 1 cup of corn bread, diced
• 1/2 cup vegetable broth
• 1/4 cup pecans, chopped

Chickpeas:

See http://www.theppk.com/2010/11/doublebatch-chickpea-cutlets/ (Note: I only used half of the double recipe here for this. Feel free to make the whole thing and you can freeze off the extra!)

Basting liquid:

• 3 Tbsp soy sauce
• 2 Tbsp sesame oil

Alright, easiest way to do this if you are doing cornbread from scratch is to make that the day before. I used Color Me Vegan cornbread. I hope to alter the recipe as I found it a bit to moist and it didn't bake well for me. Here are some pictures in the mean time:

The batter is cornmeal, qunioa, flour, maple syrup, soy milk and blueberries and corn.
It was pretty easy!

While it came out looking good, it was a bit underdone in the centre.
I think  the batter was too moist

Pre-heat the over to 400F. Heat the oil in the pan and add the oil and add the celery and onion. Cook for about 5 minutes. Add the herbs, apple and the peas and cook for another 3-4 minutes. Now, Add the breads and the broth and cook until heated through. Lastly, toss in the pecans and combine. Take it off the heat and if you haven't yet, make the chickpea patties.

Start with the base of onion and celery, add your herbs and then the other ingredients and..

Voila! Stuffing and it was easy!

Get out a colander and line it with cheese cloth (Plastic wrap would probably work fine as well). put the chickpea mixture into the colander and mold it into the  colander and hollow out the middle. Add the stuff and push down with a spatula. Now get a cookie sheet and oil it lightly. Put the cook it sheet over the colander and invert it. Remove the cheese cloth and take about half of the basting liquid and brush it all over the top of the chickpea dome. Cover with tin foil and put it in the oven for about 45 minutes. 

This is what it will look like before inverting it to get it on the pan. Fill it to the very top with stuffing and press it in there!

In the oven it goes! No all day roasting for this thankgiving treat!

After this, take the chickpea turkey out and brush the remaining liquid all over it. Put it back in the over for 20-25 minutes or until it is nice and golden brown. Remove and you are ready to serve! I served with cranberry sauce, but you could also use vegan gravy. Serve with all you favourite sides! I had it with green beans and it was good. Also had it now with collards and brussel sprouts and it was also a perfect combo!

Above: an example of a vegan Thanksgiving Dinner. Not so bad eh?

Overall Thanksgiving was a full success. The meat eaters got their meat fill, but everyone that tried my chickpea turkey loved it. All of Laura's vegan side dishes were awesome. Even though I was not a big fan of the corn bread, others liked it. My sister made vegan cookies and they were amazing. If you have not added salt to chocolate cookies, please do so immediately!

I am hoping that she will do a guest post again. She is currently trying out recipes from peas and thank you and I think there are some recipes worth writing about, but would also like to hear her reaction giving a vegan cook book a try.

Whew... Exhausted! 10 days of blogging. I am loving it, but it is not easy getting all this done. I am not working ahead. Generally what you see is what was on the menu today. I have no idea what this coming week will bring, but I am thinking... soups... and cookies? :)

Pumpkin Upside Down Cake

It is Thanksgiving and in my family, we don't do much. However my sister's family does.. So I will be crashing their festivities tomorrow and to ensure that they will let me, I decided to break out the big guns and make Pumpkin Upside Down Cake.

Confession, I forgot to add the chia eggs! Otherwise, this cake holds together just fine.

I actually got this recipe from a funeral. It was so good, that I knew I couldn't leave without finding out what this delicious dessert was. Luckily I did get to take it home with me. It is ridiculously easy to make, but I never thought I could have it again because it called for three eggs and evaporated milk. The eggs was not an issue except for that I normally only make recipes with one or two substituted eggs. Evaporated milk is a whole other issue.

Is there a vegan evaporated milk? Can this be done? I had never seen one before, so I did some googling to find out what was out there. Turns out it is pretty easy. Get some soy milk powder and then double the ratio of dry to water.

So with that small obstical out of the way, here it goes. Let's veganize the best pumpkin recipe I have tried!

Pumpkin Upside-Down Cake
*Addapted from some maritimer's recipe

• One 14 Oz (414 ml) can of pure pumkin
• 1 1/2 cups of soy milk
• 3/8 of a cup of instant soy milk powder
• 1 cup of sugar
• 2 tsp chia seeds
• 4 Tbsp water
• 4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 1 box of vegan cake mix
• 3/4 cup melted vegan margarine

Pre-heat the oven to 350 F and grease a 9 X 13" cake pan. 

First, make the evaporated milk. Combine the soy milk powder and the soy milk. I used my magic bullet to mix them together, but if you don't have one, just stir it really well until combined. Next, make the chia eggs. Grind the chia seeds in a coffee grinder (or if you have a magic bullet, use it here). Pour in the water and let it sit for a couple minutes. Next whisk or blend in the magic bullet your grinded seeds and the water until it has an eggy consistency.

Like almost all baked goods, mix, pour, bake. So easy!

Now, combine the milk, sugar, pumpkin, egg and spice in a bowl and stir until combined. Pour the mixture into the greased cake pan and distribute it evenly. Now pour the cake mix on top and the top that with the chopped pecans. Lastly, take the melted margarine and pout this all over the cake (as evenly as you can get it. if there is dry cake mix still, that's OK)

Bake it in the oven for 50 - 60 minutes or until it is browned on top. Let it cool for an hour or so before serving. Serve with vegan ice cream or whipped cream.

Ahh... pumpkin bliss in one hour. 90% of that is just sitting around waiting. That is the hardest part.

If this won't allow me to be able to bust in on other people's thanksgiving, I don't know what will!